FARMINGTON — “ATTENTION: New Works by Tom Jessen” will kick off its recently installed exhibition with a gala opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 1 in the Emery Community Arts Center on the University of Maine at Farmington campus. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. The exhibit runs through March 23.

The mixed media, site-specific work in ATTENTION reflects the artist’s interest in pattern, specifically the tendency of patterns to come in and out of the viewer’s immediate focus. Pattern engages our attention in a particular way: It has the effect of both being there and not being there, the fluctuation between presence and absence reflecting the perception and habits of attention of the viewer. These works engage a number of questions about perception, the immediacy of experience, the act of knowing and one’s relationship with a particular space.

Jessen’s paintings and mixed-media works explore the boundaries between immediate experience and the self-conscious art object, referentiality and abstraction, repetition and difference. He received a BFA in painting from the University of Iowa and now lives in Temple, Maine.

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